Citation, Quotation and Professional Editing: every key term you need (+ practice quiz)
25 flashcard terms for Legal Research and Writing Topic 8, written to match the course framework. Study them here, then drill them as interactive flashcards, or test yourself with the 15-question quiz — free, no account needed.
A standardized reference identifying an authority precisely enough that any reader can retrieve it, and signalling the authority's type, court, date, and weight in a compact form.
Case citation components
A full case cite typically gives the case name, the reporter volume, the reporter abbreviation, the first page, the pinpoint page, and a parenthetical with the court and year.
Pinpoint citation
The page reference identifying exactly where the cited proposition appears. Omitting it forces the reader to search the opinion and signals careless work to a supervisor.
Reporter
A published series collecting judicial opinions, either official or commercial, whose volume, abbreviation, and page numbers form the retrieval coordinates in a case citation.
Parallel citation
A second reference to the same opinion in another reporter, required by some state courts by local rule even where the national citation manual would treat one cite as sufficient.
Public domain citation
A medium neutral format using year, court abbreviation, sequential opinion number, and paragraph number, adopted by several states so opinions can be cited without a print reporter.
Short form citation
An abbreviated reference used after a full citation has appeared, typically a party name with the volume, reporter, and pinpoint page, which keeps later references readable.
Supra and infra
Cross reference signals pointing to material earlier or later in the same document. Their use for cases is restricted, while they remain common for secondary sources.
Id. reference
A short form meaning the immediately preceding authority, permitted only when no other authority intervenes, and paired with a new pinpoint page when the page changes.
Introductory signal
A word placed before a citation to show the relationship between the source and the assertion, such as direct support, implicit support, comparison, or contradiction.
No signal
The absence of an introductory word, used when the cited authority directly states the proposition or is the source of a quotation, and misused when the support is only indirect.
See signal
Indicates the authority supports the proposition by clear inference rather than stating it outright, a distinction supervising lawyers notice because it reports how strong the support is.
Explanatory parenthetical
A short phrase after a citation summarizing what the source held or why it matters, often beginning with a participle, which lets a writer pack support into a compact space.
Citation order
The convention that authorities in a string cite are arranged by hierarchy and recency, so constitutions precede statutes, higher courts precede lower ones, and newer cases lead older ones.
String citation
Several authorities cited for one proposition. Useful to show weight of authority or a jurisdictional trend, and a distraction when a single controlling case would do.
Statutory citation
A reference giving the code title or chapter, the section symbol and number, and a parenthetical identifying the jurisdiction and the currency of the compilation used.
Ellipsis in a quotation
Three spaced periods marking omitted words within a quoted passage, which may never be used to hide qualifying language that would change the reader's understanding.
Brackets in a quotation
Marks indicating an altered letter, substituted word, or inserted clarification inside quoted text, so the reader can see exactly where the writer changed the original.
Block quotation
A quotation long enough to be indented without quotation marks. Because readers routinely skip them, a paraphrase with a short quoted phrase usually persuades better.
Alteration disclosure
The obligation to flag every change to quoted language, including emphasis added and internal citations omitted, since undisclosed alteration is a candor problem rather than a style choice.
Plagiarism in legal writing
Presenting another's language or organization as one's own. Citation practice, not quotation marks alone, is the safeguard, and law schools treat violations as serious misconduct.
Substantive editing
The first revision pass, testing whether the analysis is complete and correctly ordered, and whether each conclusion is actually supported, before any attention goes to sentences.
Line editing
The sentence level pass cutting nominalizations, tightening subject verb distance, replacing throat clearing openers, and converting weak passive constructions into concrete actors and verbs.
Proofreading
The final mechanical pass for typographical errors, citation format, party name accuracy, and record page numbers, best done on paper and separately from substantive revision.
Cite check of a draft
Pulling every source in a finished draft to confirm it exists, remains good law, says what the text claims, and is quoted and paginated accurately before filing or delivery.